


An Untamed Thing

by louciferish



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Banter, Blood and Injury, M/M, More tags to be added, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Slow Build, ambiguous jungle setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29091312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: Howard Moon Colon Explorergets lostventures out into the jungle in search of fame and fortune. When his path collides with Vince, a boy raised by wild animals who speaks their languageinexplicably with a South London accent, Howard is certain this will be his ticket to the cover ofGlobal Explorer.Take that, Dixon Bainbridge.Now, Howard just has to persuade his newmeal ticketfriend to leave the wilderness behind.
Relationships: Howard Moon/Vince Noir
Comments: 18
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's far from a 1:1 but this idea was partly sparked by the song "Hum Along" by Ludo, specifically
> 
> _I would vigilante-bushwhack through the jungles of Peru  
>  Just to save you and I'd take you north to Mexico  
> Where you would tell me your life story on the steps of a Mayan temple  
> Where we'd camp singing nonsense songs in 12 bars to the jaguars, until you'd sense me  
> Your eyes convincing, and I would kiss you like a hero in the half-light_
> 
> Because it strikes me as the sort of romantic daydream one Howard TJ Moon would insert himself into.
> 
> This idea was also ~~enabled~~ assisted by all the fabulous folks on the booshlr discord. As always.

Howard barreled through the underbrush, his machete swinging wildly from side to side. The thick blade was the color of dried blood and probably as old as Howard. He’d grabbed it from a trunk before disembarking the ship, thinking it would come in useful, not thinking about the fact that an edge so rusty wouldn’t be very sharp. Cutting through the jungle growth with it was more brute force and perseverance than anything else, like trying to chop an oak tree down with a golf club. Howard whaled away on the plants and charged forward, sweat dripping down his face and sealing his khaki shirt to his back beneath his heavy hiker’s pack.

They’d laughed at him, the other explorers aboard the _Sad Trombone_. For days, Howard had vacillated between tolerating the mockery and defending himself, but that was all behind him now. He’d show them. He wouldn’t be returning to the port until he had mastered the entire jungle, made Mother Nature his little bitch, and could emerge triumphant with a great discovery. To hell with Dixon Bainbridge and his braindead lackeys. Howard Moon would be the new face on the cover of _Global Explorer_.

His machete collided with the side of a young tree with a dull _thwack_ and stuck there. Howard grabbed the handle with both hands and heaved, but the tree held on tight. “Fuck _you_ , sir,” Howard growled. He launched himself at the sapling, tugging and slapping at the branches he could reach, a storm of furious futility.

He came back to himself some time later to find both hands wrapped around the tree trunk, as if he meant to strangle the life from the entire jungle with his bare fists. His stolen machete lay forgotten in a pile of ferns, having fallen at some point during the battle. Howard let go of the tree and braced his hands on his knees instead, bent double and heaving for air.

It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but the air beneath the canopy sweltered with humidity. Between the exertion and the sticky, thick atmosphere, Howard was drenched with sweat, and the occasional breeze that wound through the foliage made him shiver. 

Pushing his pack off his shoulders, he dropped it into a pile of broken fronds and dug around the front pocket until he found his map. Kneeling, he spread it out around him, then dropped a fingertip at the spot where the _Sad Trombone_ had docked.

“Right,” he muttered to himself, tracing a path. “Started here. Then, I came into the jungle, and went straight ahead, so I ought to be…” His finger stopped a few miles into the green splat of trees on the map, and Howard frowned. That couldn’t be right. He’d gone due West, hadn’t he? He was sure of it, but according to the map, he should be somewhere atop a mountain right now. 

Reaching into his shirt pocket, Howard fished out his trusty compass. It was wood and plastic, not refined like the golden, diamond-encrusted tools that Bainbridge had been flaunting on the journey, but a compass was a compass, and this one had accompanied young Howard on many an adventure since it had first arrived on his doorstep, a send-away prize from a cereal box. It rattled in his hand when he shook it, then tilted the face up to check his bearing.

Rather than swinging toward North, the needle lay, despondent, on the bottom of the face. Broken. Howard slumped. 

With no compass, a machete as sharp as a plastic butter knife, and no clue as to where he was on the map, it occurred to Howard that he was, in fact, hopelessly lost, alone, and trapped in a strange and wild environment. Now that he’d paused for a breather, he could hear the strange calls and creaks of the jungle echoing around him -- buzzing from unknown insects, the snap of twigs, a high-pitched grunting series of cries as a troop of monkeys called out to each other in the canopy. The branches high above him shook, sending a few green leaves dancing down through the swampy air, and Howard shivered again. This time, it had much less to do with the temperature.

He looked back in the direction he was sure he’d come from, but there was no sign of his path. For all the thrashing he’d done, it was as if the jungle had pulled a set of curtains closed behind him. Aside from the sapling he’d tried to throttle, not even the plant life showed any impact from Howard TJ Moon.

Despair edged into Howard’s mind. He’d been a fool. He should have stayed with Bainbridge and his hired men. If he had some company--

 _No, what are you thinking?_ He cut himself off, shaking his head to rid himself of those thoughts. _Howard Moon has no need for pack men or advanced tools. He’s a man of action, a man of great possibility. You can do this, Howard. You can find your own path._

“That’s right,” Howard muttered. “My own path. My path to the cover of _Global Explorer_!” He shot to his feet, fist raised to the sky, poised for triumph. From twenty feet above, a shower of monkey turds rained down onto his hat. 

Cursing, Howard pulled it off, waving the straw monstrosity around to clean it off, but whatever monkey had just shat on him was clearly in serious need of a veterinarian. Giving it up as a loss until he could get to some water, Howard strapped the hat onto his pack instead.

 _Water._ Howard paused, fingers lingering on his pack as he raised his head to whisper, “Howard, you’re a genius.” He seized the map and pulled it into his lap, scanning the green expanse. His instincts were right -- slipping through the jungle like a party streamer was a wide, blue twist of a river. Several smaller streams wandered off from it, veining into the deepest woodland. The main river itself traced through the landscape to end at the sea, and dotting its delta was another busy port.

If Howard could find water, he could track it to the river. If he could find the _river_ , he only needed to follow the flow downstream to arrive at the port. It was simple, really. Howard folded the map up neatly, then tucked it into his shirt pocket alongside his broken compass. 

Getting his pack back onto his shoulders to head out was a struggle he was glad no one else was around to see. He’d gathered supplies in such a hurry when he departed the ship that he’d had to toss his usual efficiency out the porthole and focus on simply loading up everything he _might_ need. Now that he had to shoulder it all through the jungle, he had regrets.

Once he’d struggled to standing and fastened the pack strap across his chest, Howard looked around for a heading. All around him were trees, trees, and even more trees. He knew there was a mountain somewhere, and if he could spot that, then he’d be able to orientate himself on the map, but from the forest floor he couldn’t see a thing aside from the blanketing green of the jungle canopy. It was impossible to tell where the river or the mountain might be, or even which direction the sunlight was moving. If he could get to higher ground-- But Howard had never been a very good climber, even as a boy. He vastly preferred the nice, safe earth to attempting to climb a tree, and the ones out here certainly weren’t geared toward first-timers.

Besides, if he did make it up somehow, the monkeys would probably throw shit directly into his face.

For lack of a better option, Howard spun around until his hand landed on the trunk of the sapling he’d attacked before. He patted the weeping scar in its side with a strange sort of fondness. Might as well continue the same direction he’d been going. Dull machete hanging loose in his hand, Howard stepped around the little tree and pushed on, bushwhacking ahead. Once he’d started, he never looked back to see the little sapling shaking in his wake.

-

Howard had changed his mind about the jungle. It was trying to kill him. Not content with merely being both hot and cold at once, impossible to navigate, and apparently full of small tree-climbing mammals with severe digestive issues, the jungle itself had launched an all out assault against Howard Moon. In the past two hours of forging his own path, Howard had nearly: fallen into a pit, had a spider the size of his hand make a nest in his hair, and gotten so entangled in vines that he felt like a dolphin in a tuna net. 

In fact, for the past mile or so, his steps had been haunted by the occasional excitement of a low, warning growl, followed by the sound of shaking bush and shrieking primates. Howard didn’t know what was making the growl, and he didn’t want to. He was exhausted. His back ached from the heavy pack, and he was dripping with sweat (among other things), heart hammering in his chest. 

His own breathing was so loud, he didn’t recognize the new sound around him for what it was at first, mistaking it for the rustle of monkeys leaping through the canopy. He had to pause, resting his arm against a tree to slow his breathing, every muscle in his body tensed and waiting for that weird growl to ring out again, before his ears separated the new, lighter rushing sound from everything else pounding in Howard’s ears. 

He held his breath, just to hear it more clearly. _Yes. Yes, that was it! Water._

Alight with new energy, knowing his goal was close enough to hear, Howard charged back into the bushes, dodging tree roots and grasping vines as he barreled toward the song of the river.

On Howard’s map, the river was a thin, winding ribbon of pale blue at the center of dense green foliage. In reality, the water was as green as the plant life that surrounded it. It cut through brown and grey, stone-speckled riverbanks like a scar slicing though flesh. The water swirled white over boulders thrust into the air upstream, then churned and calmed into a slow-moving pool ahead of where Howard finally broke the tree line. At a guess, it was more than twelve feet wide, and the bank on the other side was a steep, abrupt drop off of dirt and jagged rocks.

But between Howard and the other bank, waist-deep in the swirling green waters beside a massive rotten log, was a woman. A _naked_ woman. 

Howard took it all in, helplessly, in a fraction of a second -- all the pale, creamy skin of her back, the long, golden blonde hair that caught sunlight and streamed down past her shoulderblades with her head tilted back, the dip of her spine taunting him from just above the water line. Howard was so spellbound, so frozen, that the rotted log was almost to the shoreline before Howard realized it was moving, and it wasn’t a log at all. It was, in fact, the largest crocodile he had ever seen outside of a science fiction film.

A blunt snout emerged from the mud, and there could be no doubt that it was headed straight for him. Staggering back, Howard tried to exclaim a warning to the woman. The heel of his boot slammed into a loose rock, and the world flipped. For a flash, Howard saw bright blue sky and happy little clouds peeking out between the trees, and then it all went black.

-

Howard’s parents were fighting again. He could hear it dimly, the snaps and muttering grunts. It all felt so familiar, and yet his bed felt wrong, too hard beneath his back. Something was jabbing him in the spine, and in the hip, and something else, insistent, poked repeatedly at his face.

“You’ve killed him,” a voice shouted nearby. “Look what you did! I’ll tell Bryan on you; don’t think I won’t.” The sound dissolved again into hissing, and Howard frowned. That wasn’t right. That didn’t sound like his parents at all. 

Gradually, Howard opened his eyes, and the world swam back into focus -- blue sky breaking through the jungle canopy, the song of a rushing river, and a boy, hovering over him, with the head of a wolf. 

Howard gasped and threw his arms up over his face. “Don’t kill me,” he whimpered. “I’ve got so much to give!”

“What? Kill you?” The wolf boy nudged Howard’s arm with the toe of one snakeskin boot. “I’m not going to kill you; I saved your bloody life!”

In a flash, Howard remembered the crocodile. He shot up, looking around wildly, and spotted the beast mere feet away from him. Its head was as wide as his torso. Howard let out a manly, powerful shriek.

“See?” The wolf boy shouted at the reptile. The wolf skin wrapped around him like a cloak flapped as he talked with his hands. “You’re going to give him a fucking heart attack. Get out of here.” The croc’s mouth opened, showing a full set of vicious yellow teeth, long as Howard’s pinky. It hissed back at the boy, who threw up his hands. “No one cares about your mixtape, Terry. Fuck off!”

The croc’s jaws snapped shut. Was Howard imagining the resentment in its beady yellow eyes? Hard to tell. Either way, the beast stepped back once, then again, then slowly began to twist its wide, muscular body around, slinking back into the river.

“There you go,” the wolf boy said. “Alright now?” It was probably meant to be a soothing tone, but his odd South London accent and the empty eyes of the dead wolf atop his head added an edge of menace to the whole thing. He reached out as if to brush dirt from Howard’s chest, and Howard shrank back.

“Don’t touch me. I don’t need your help.” Howard squirmed, trying to sit up but weighted down by the heavy pack still strapped to his back. “I had it all under control.”

The wolf boy cackled. He had a wide, easy grin, and it made him look even more like a cartoon character than he had before. “As if you did. Terry was going to chomp you up if I hadn’t come along.” He clambered to his feet, and Howard could feel him tugging the backpack, trying to help him up. He took the assistance, pretending not to notice. 

“The joke’s on you, sir. I think you’ll find there’s more to Howard Moon than meets the eye. I’m armed and dangerous. That croc should be the one thanking you.”

“Armed with what? This?” The boy toed the pebbles next to Howard, revealing the worn handle of his machete -- the handle, and nothing more. The only trace of the rusty blade left was a few ragged shards. Howard stared at the broken, useless thing. It hadn’t been a _good_ knife, but it was the only one he had. 

He kneeled up, pebbles digging into his kneecaps, intending to get to his feet, but the world swam around him, the air all wobbly with strands of sickening light. Everything tilted.

“Woah!” The boy caught his shoulders, and Howard didn’t have the fortitude to protest again. His stomach was doing a barrel roll -- the familiar sensation of sea-sickness, but this time on dry land. The wolf boy put a hand to the back of Howard’s head, then cursed, quiet but remarkably colorful. “You’ll need to clean that up. Come on, then. Up you get.”

Though he wouldn’t say as much out loud, Howard found himself impressed at how strong the strange boy was. He was short and looked slight on first glance. Beneath his wolf cloak, he was dressed in bright woven linens, the same type of blousy garments that Howard had noticed on the native women he passed in the port. Aside from the dead wolf, nothing about the boy seemed dangerous or particularly impressive; he was all easy smiles and silly words, but he pulled Howard to his feet with only a small grunt of effort, knees locked and legs braced against the weight of Howard and his pack. 

So much shorter, his shoulder fit beneath Howard’s arm like a perfect living crutch, and he hobbled them both toward the river. The back of Howard’s head was throbbing, alternating between sharp and dull spikes as he moved, and the pain wasn’t helped by the way the wolf boy began to _talk_ at him.

“Don’t blame Terry. He didn’t mean to frighten you so bad. He’s just protective of me, is all. He’s old as dirt -- he must be about fifty! I think he don’t have any kids of his own, or he hasn’t in a long time, so he’s taken a liking to me. The animals, they don’t really understand that I’m grown now, you know? Humans are so soft and slow; I’m always going to be a cub to most of them.”

Howard blinked, trying not to focus too much on the tilting ground beneath his feet or the trees on the horizon. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and nothing the boy was saying made sense. When they reached the riverbank, Howard could only stand, swaying gently as the wolf boy unfastened his pack, dropping it with no care onto the rocks, before pushing Howard to sit by the stream. When Howard’s butt met the pebbles, the lights behind his eyes blinked out again.

He was back in a second, the wound at the back of his head protesting with searing agony as the wolf boy dumped a double handful of ice cold river water over his head. Howard spluttered. 

“Don’t you fall asleep,” the boy muttered. His strange, angular face was inches away from Howard’s own, and his brilliant blue eyes were lined with kohl. “I ought to dunk you all in if I didn’t think you’d drown. You know you’re covered in monkey shit, right?”

Howard could feel the whole earth moving beneath him, the rotation of the sun’s orbit baked into the ground where his fingers found mud on the riverbank. The boy’s face blurred again. “What’s your name?” Howard muttered through dry lips. 

“Vince,” the boy said softly, a whisper that barely carried over the roar of the river. One palm cupped Howard’s cheek, and he leaned into the warmth. “I’m Vince.” 

The next thing Howard heard was another quiet _fuck_ as everything tilted sideways again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been watching a lot of Naked and Afraid.
> 
> Naked and Afraid: the Howard Moon Story

This time, when Howard woke, he knew the boy would be there. _Vince_. The name came back to Howard as soon as he recognized the snap and crackle of a fire nearby. This time, when he opened his eyes, there were stars out. Howard took a moment to take it all in -- so many bright specks and strips of color in the clear sky above. The moon, nearly full, was more gold than white against a background like navy velvet. After Leeds and then London, night skies obscured by lights and fog, the swirl of the galaxy was unreal and massive, and against that background Howard felt miniscule. He didn’t care for that. 

Slowly, he pushed up onto his elbows, checking the rest of his surroundings. His head was still woozy, and the ache at the back of his skull was omnipresent, but he wasn’t tilting with nauseous vertigo anymore.

A slight fire pit dug into the riverbank a few feet away threw light and flickering warmth in Howard’s direction, and the wolf boy crouched beside it prodded the ashes with a stick, the tip of his pink tongue caught between his teeth. He wasn’t a wolf boy anymore -- his cloak was off, spread over Howard’s chest instead, and Howard pushed it aside with one hand, keeping his gaze focused on the fire so he wouldn’t have to see the wolf’s empty eyes. 

Vince straightened up when he noticed movement, and that easy grin lit his features again. “Alright, ‘oward?” The fire’s light made his ragged, uneven hair into gold and cast long shadows over his pointy features.

“How did you know my name?” Howard asked, eyes narrowed. A sharp spike of anxiety ran through him at the thought that he’d talked in his sleep, but Vince nodded to the other side of the fire, where Howard’s pack slumped, drawstring trailing and things strewn about.

“It’s all over your stuff, innit? _Property of Howard TJ Moon._ ” Right. A few days before he’d left, Howard had acquired an ancient label-maker at a jumble sale. He may have gone a bit overboard with the stickers.

“Why were you digging through my things?” Howard expected the boy to look embarrassed or at least a bit guilty, but Vince only shrugged and settled back in the dirt, folding his legs up beneath him in a lotus. 

“Thought you might have snacks. Sometimes the explorers, they loose their stuff or toss it out when they’re scared off. How come you didn’t bring nothing edible?” 

“I packed a week’s worth of MREs.” 

Vince’s face crumpled up with pure distaste. “Like I said,” he repeated. “Nofing edible. You couldn’t have brought a single packet of Hula Hoops? Maybe a bit of Cadbury Crunchy?”

Howard stared at him. The poor bastard. Howard had read many adventure stories before he’d boarded the _Sad Trombone_. He’d heard tales of explorers who got lost in the jungle and ‘went native,’ or even lost their wits entirely. Vince looked young, maybe even younger than Howard, but he must have been out in the forest for a long time. He’d lost touch with reality. That would explain the clothes, the odd behavior… the hair. 

Having decided Howard wasn’t going to suddenly produce a packet of Jammy Dodgers from his cargo pockets, Vince returned his attention to the fire, tossing more sticks into the base. Howard stared at him, trying to make sense of it all. Vince looked more like a public school boy who’d taken to wearing thrift hippie styles ironically than anything else, but he had a comfort, an ease with the jungle that escaped Howard. All around them, just past the edge of the fire’s light, the trees cast utter blackness onto the ground. Strange insects called to one another in clicking shrieks that made Howard flinch and jump, and deep in the darkness, something growled.

Vince was singing softly to himself as he stirred the ashes. 

“What expedition are you with?” Howard asked, breaking to the whims of curiosity. 

Vince’s smile stretched across his features, the look of a man who’d heard a joke when no one else noticed the punchline. His eyes darted to Howard, then back to the fire, and he tucked a longer strand of hair back behind his ear. “Expedition?” He chuckled. “I live here.”

So, he _had_ gone native. The poor sap. He might not be beyond saving. Maybe he had family back in London looking for him -- wealthy family. Family that would be eternally grateful to Howard Moon, the brave explorer who rescued their long-lost child. Howard tried to ask the next question gently. “How long have you been out here, little man?”

Vince rolled his eyes. “Like, literally forever,” he said, laughter edging into his voice. “I don’t think you get it, Howard. I _live_ here. This is my home.”

“But, your family--”

“No family,” Vince cut him off. “Except the animals, I guess. Terry -- you met Terry -- and then there’s Jahooli, the leopard, and Calooni the cobra. Bryan, of course. Other ones too, but most of ‘em come and go. That’s the thing about animals; they’re always wandering off and migrating.”

Howard stared at the boy, disbelieving his own ears. “Are you… Let me get this straight. Are you saying you grew up here?” Vince nodded. “You were _raised_ by wild animals?”

“Obviously,” Vince scoffed. “Otherwise, how would I know how to talk to them?”

He was saying something else after that, but Howard couldn’t see or hear him anymore. The only thing happening inside his skull was the flash of neon lights, cash register sound effects, and an image of himself, poised on the cover of _Global Explorer_ in the center of a mountain of money. _Howard Moon Discovers Wild Jungle Boy_.

Vince had turned back to the fire. He was talking again, something about tigers and Gary Numan, but Howard wasn’t listening anymore. He was looking at Vince in a new light, a _golden_ light. What did Dixon Bainbridge have, an uncontacted tribe and three new species of dung beetle? That was nothing. Laughable. If Howard came back to London with a kid _actually raised by wolves_ , the media would go insane. Howard could see it now: not just the cover of _Global Explorer_ but _The Daily Mail_ , the _Times_. Howard would be followed by paparazzi, called by agents, hounded for interviews. He could get a book deal, finally finish that detective novel he’d been working on since year six. 

Everything. Vince was Howard’s ticket to everything he’d ever wanted, and Howard had him all unawares in arm’s reach.

All he had to do was get Vince to come back with him. Easy. Howard Moon was a man of action, but he could be a man of persuasion if he had to be. He rested his chin on his hand, watching Vince feed the fire, and did his best to look enraptured.

The look Vince darted in his direction in return was… alarmed. “What’s wrong?” He asked, cheeks pink from the heat and eyes wide.

“Nothing. I’m just enjoying your story.”

“Why are you staring at me like that, then? Are you going to faint again?”

“Howard Moon doesn’t-- I didn’t _faint_.”

“Sorry. My English isn’t great. Is there another word for when your eyes roll up and you fall over like a fancy lady?”

Howard felt his own face heat. He was too far away to blame it on the fire. Shuffling Vince’s wolf pelt off his legs, he crawled closer to the little blaze for an excuse. “Have you really always lived here, Vince?”

“Yeah.” Vince’s eyes darted away. “I mean, pretty much. I guess I might’ve been born somewhere else, but I was still in nappies when Bryan found me.”

“Don’t you want more than this, though?” Howard asked, his voice gentle. He imagined his words winding their way around Vince’s head, like a spell. “Haven’t you ever wanted to see the world?”

Vince turned to face Howard, head tilted like a curious puppy. The fire on one side of him made his face into a dramatic mask, half light and half shadow. “The world?” Howard could practically see the gears in Vince’s head turning. His own fingers pressed tight into his knees, anticipating the answer. After a long pause, Vince shook his head and grinned. “Nah, I’m alright. Thanks anyway.”

“Thanks anyway,” Howard repeated, strangled. “You’re not turning down free peanuts and an in-flight movie here, Vince. We’re talking about _the world_! The rolling golden sands of the Sahara! The icy wasteland of the frozen tundra! London, and the-- the Thames!”

Vince wrinkled his nose. “Sounds a bit rubbish, honestly. Deserts are supposed to be _well_ dry -- my skin would never recover -- and the rest of it just seems cold? I’m a tropical flower, Howard. You take me out of the jungle, I’ll wither up and blow away.”

His easy dismissal put Howard at a total loss. He stared at the crackling twigs in the heart of the fire and tried to wrap his brains around it. For Howard, who had spent so much of his early life dreaming of fame, fortune, and a ticket out of his hometown, it felt insane that someone would cast all that aside. Maybe Vince _was_ insane. After all, the boy was raised by animals. He might not have his head screwed on in the right direction.

Howard shot a nervous glance across the fire, doing his best to check Vince over for signs of violent intent or a total break from reality. Vince had his head craned up toward the sky and his eyes half closed, humming a little duet along with the moon.

Nothing out of the ordinary about that.

Insane or not, Vince was still Howard’s best bet for getting out of the jungle with his dignity intact. He’d need to try a different route. “Vince,” he began carefully. “Do you know the way to Port City from here?”

Vince brightened again, and the fire light made his grin look sinister. “I knew it. You _are_ lost.”

“I’m not lost,” Howard snapped. “I have a map.”

“Right. Where’s the rest of your expedition, then?”

Howard paused. “They were holding me back. I cut them loose.”

“Cut them loose?” Vince repeated, laughter threading through his voice. “What are they, pack mules?”

Howard fumbled for a response, tense, and then gave up on saying anything at all. He delved into his shirt pocket and snatched out the map. His broken compass, caught in the folds, came along too, clattering into his lap. Vince leaned forward, but Howard had already scooped up the old toy and dropped it back into his shirt. 

On his knees, Howard walked around the edge of the fire, then unfolded the map across his thighs. In the time it took him to inhale, Vince had crossed the few inches of distance between them, pressed flush to Howard’s side. Howard froze, thrown by the sudden contact, but Vince was only leaning forward, examining the map more closely in the light. Howard swallowed.

His voice still came out a bit stuttery. “I think we’re, um. I think we’re right here?” He pointed at a spot on the map, beside the river, then drew a line down the bank. “And there’s the port, but my compass broke, so I’m not sure which direction…”

Vince’s fingers brushed over Howard’s thighs as he picked up the map and held it closer to his face. “Hmmm,” he said, frowning at the paper. After a pause, he turned it sideways, then hummed again. “Well, this is no good.”

Howard’s blood went cold. “What’s no good?”

“It turns out I can’t read a map,” Vince said with a shrug and another easy grin. If they hadn’t been so near the fire, Howard would have pushed him. Instead, he snatched the map back. “I do know how to get there, though.” Vince nodded his pointy noise down the side of the river bank. “It’s that way.”

Howard peered in the direction Vince had indicated, but it was so dark out, all he could see was black and trees. “How far that way?”

“Couple days walking,” Vince answered, though it came out sounding like a question. “Maybe three? I dunno. I tend to stop a lot when I’m going places, visit friends, pop by the shops. Might take you longer.”

“Could you take me?” It didn’t sound like a difficult trip; certainly, nothing Howard couldn’t have handled alone, but if he wanted to get Vince back to London to collect his rewards, Howard would clearly need more than a few hours alone with him by a fire. He needed Vince to stay. He needed to get Vince to the boat. 

(He pictured, briefly, clocking Vince over the head with something once they got to the port, dumping him into a wheelbarrow and then carting him off to sea. It was a distinct possibility, but only as a last resort.)

Vince’s eyes pointed toward the sky whenever he was thinking about something seriously, as if he were taking a literal look into his own skull. After a moment, he said, “I’d better not. Rainy season will be starting soon, you know. If I go anywhere now, I’ll miss the last outdoor parties, and I heard the howler monkeys are planning an absolute screamer. I’ve got a whole new outfit for it and everything.”

“You’re saying no because you’d rather go to a party with a bunch of screaming apes?”

“The last party of the season,” Vince protested with a thorough pout, twining a longer strand of shaggy hair around one finger. “It’ll be weeks before there’s another. By then my new outfit will be dust. See, I’ve fashioned this new headdress out of banana leaves and wild grapes. Genius. And then, I’m going to…”

Howard had stopped listening after ‘banana leaves.’ It was clear Vince was no mastermind, and yet he kept thwarting Howard’s attempts to persuade him at every turn. Howard was running out of avenues to pursue, and he could only see two options remaining: beg, or play dirty. 

Dirty it would be, then. Poor, innocent Vince. He had no idea of the great natural acting talent seated beside him.

“That’s fine, then.” Howard sighed heavily, interrupting Vince in mid-stream of a story about an outfit he’d worn the previous season, something with ostrich feathers. “I’m sure I can find my own way. Don’t worry about me, no sir. Howard Moon has an impeccable sense of direction.” Howard shook his map out to straighten it before folding it neatly back in his shirt pocket, then rose onto his knees as if he planned to go back to the other side of the fire.

Halfway to his feet, his let himself sway. He sucked in a loud, hissing breath and pressed his hand to the loop of bandage at the back of his skull. It did actually sting when he touched it, and he bit his tongue to hold back a real whimper before making himself fake one. 

“You sure you’re alright, ‘oward?” Vince’s fingers brushed his wrist, and Howard batted his hand away.

“Of course. I’ll be fine by myself, alone in the forest. Nothing to worry about at all.” A quick glance down showed Vince sitting back on his heels, too quick to believe Howard’s reassurance. With one hand still pressed to his head, Howard faked a stumble toward the fire.

He wasn’t expecting the jutting bit of stone his toe landed on, or the way it flipped beneath his foot. With a gasp, Howard went forward again, arms flapping for purchase in the air like a jazzy goose.

In an instant, Vince was on his feet, long fingers holding firm to Howard’s hand, reeling him back until Howard was secure on his heels again. This time, he _could_ blame the pink in his cheeks on proximity to the flame -- he and the fire had almost been intimate -- and not on the way Vince’s palm was warm and soft against his own.

Vince was watching him through narrowed eyes as Howard jerked his hand back. “I dunno, ‘oward. Maybe I ought to come after all. You’re a bit rubbish at the jungle, is all, and you might _actually_ die without me.”

The most difficult part of Howard’s act was biting his tongue to keep from challenging that claim. He had to literally bite it, until the throb in his mouth overpowered the throb in his skull. “Well,” he slurred, teeth still pressed to his tongue. “If you insist.”

On legs that were still less steady than he’d have liked, Howard made his way to the other side of the fire. Vince’s wolf pelt lay in a heap of dirty fur, and Howard shook it out away from the fire before passing it back over. 

“Cheers,” Vince said as he accepted it with a grin that broke into a wide, yawning stretch. “Think I’ll go ahead and have a little sleepy.”

“Good plan,” Howard agreed, kneeling to sort through his backpack, trying to remember if he’d thrown in a blanket, a towel, anything that might separate him from the pebbled riverbank. “We’ll want to be up with the dawn in the morning if we hope to make this a quick trip. Should I try to set an alarm on my watch?” 

But when Howard glanced across the fire for an answer, Vince was already asleep, curled up toward the fire on his wolf skin. 

No matter how much Howard patted his backpack, it didn’t become anything remotely like a pillow. Resting his head on it, he could feel the edge of a leatherbound diary and a stainless steel bowl digging into the base of his skull. Still, he stretched out among the dirt and rocks and tried his best to get comfortable. In the black shadows of the jungle, an unseen creature let out a low, fading moan. Tense, shaking, Howard fixed his eyes on the swirl of stars high in the blue velvet sky above. Barely audible above the crackle of the fire, Howard could hear a faint melody floating down from the heavens. Eyes half closed, he counted his breaths as he hummed along.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm now deep enough into this that I have a chapter count! It's really 5 chapters, plus an epilogue, so this is the midway point.

Growing up, Howard always imagined the great outdoors as peaceful. It looked that way on the nature shows he watched, all of them voiced by serene-sounding adults and full of wide shots of grassy plain, but he hadn’t much personal experience to extrapolate from. 

Once, he’d had the brilliant idea to try his hand at camping in the back garden. He’d strung up a couple cords to drape a tarp across as an impromptu pup tent, then taken several trips back and forth from the house to the tent with supplies. His little arms were piled so high with pillows and blankets that he wobbled when he walked, barely able to see over the stack. He’d spread his cushions into a cozy nest beneath the tarp, then gone back in once more for a few snacks, a book, his compass, and a torch. 

It was a magical experience at first. There he was, eight year-old Howard Moon alone in the dark, in as close to the wild as he could get. He’d perched happily atop a pillow with his compass on his knee, torch in hand and _The Jungle Book_ splayed over his lap. Mowgli’s story had crept its little tendrils into his young mind, until he imagined he could hear the low, rumbling growl of Bagheera just outside his tent. 

On hands and knees, torch in his teeth, he’d crept to the edge of the blankets and peered out from beneath the tarp. There was nothing to see in the garden but shadows and shrubs. No stars sparkled overhead. A thick blanket of dark clouds blocked out everything -- everything but the reflective gold pools of street lights and the _whoosh_ of passing cars on the street out front. It was disappointingly suburban, and nothing else. Howard had crawled back into his tent to settle back with his book, committed to staying up past his bedtime and sleeping outdoors until morning.

A few more pages into his story, the sky opened up.

In his excitement to get outside and set his things up before dark, Howard hadn’t noticed a rip at the apex of his tarp. There was no missing it once the rain started. Water poured through the small opening like a faucet, dumping all over Howard and soaking his book. He scrambled to his feet, straining his arms to try to fix the hole, or at least move it somewhere to the side, but every pull and pinch only seemed to widen the gap.

Howard had toddled outside the his first load of blankets for his adventure at 7:30. By his usual bedtime of 9, he was back in the house, soaked to the skin, hair plastered to his round face, and dragging a pile of mud-spattered linens after him, leaving a snail trail of grass clippings and filth through the kitchen. He was, as he’d hoped, up far past his bedtime -- doing laundry and mopping the floors.

All in all, it was a resounding failure. Among a great many viable candidates, the evening had always stood out to Howard as one of the worst nights of his life. 

His first night in the real jungle made the back garden adventure look like a weekend at Euro Disney. 

With the sun down and the pebbled ground beneath his back, the riverbank was _freezing_. Howard had wrapped his own arms around himself and curled into a ball on his side, turned to face the fire, but that only pressed the sharper stones into his hipbone and the meat of his shoulder. He shook, not quite to the point of chattering teeth, but still freezing. 

Despite the cold, Howard was exhausted enough from his hike through the trees and an emotionally taxing day that his body still wanted to catch up on sleep. Yet, every time his eyelids grew heavy and he found himself drifting off, the fire would let out a loud _POP_ or something would rustle in the trees at Howard’s back, and he’d jerk awake once again, every muscle tense, on edge.

The timing of these little startles was so perfect that Howard’s sleep-desperate mind was taking a turn toward conspiracy. Surely, it couldn’t be a coincidence that some growl or crackle woke him _every_ time he’d start to drift. The wilderness was, once again, out to get Howard Moon in particular.

When false dawn cast its first creeping, grey light over the jungle, the infernal birds began. There was music to be heard among the trees, but there was also screeching, cawing, the screams of wild parrots. Howard curled in on himself further, shook, and twitched. Across the dying fire, he could see Vince sound asleep, a messily elegant sprawl on his back, his fingers gripping the fur of the wolf cloak he’d stretched out on.

He wasn’t alone, either. At some point in the night, a family of ocelots had wandered into their camp. The adult, curled by Vince’s head, watched Howard with slitted golden eyes, while her kittens slept in a pile draped across Vince’s slow rising chest. When Howard made a move to sit up, the mother ocelot let out a warning hiss. He sank back to the ground.

Howard stared at Vince’s peaceful slumber, resentment and exhaustion at war with each other in his head, waiting for the sun to finish rising so he could give up the farce of rest.

Of course, it was only then that his brain gave up its frantic paranoia, and he tumbled abruptly into sleep.

A few short hours later, Howard awoke again to _heat_. The sun was up in earnest warming the air, and a slanted ray of light slipped over the jungle canopy to smack Howard directly in the face. Grumbling, he tried to bat it away, slapping himself in the cheek in the process, and heard a chuckle.

Howard’s eyes flew open. Vince was awake, sitting on his wolf pelt with one knee tucked to his chest. His blond hair was flat on one side where he’d laid on it, and he was eating, taking chomping bites of a banana as he stared at Howard with obvious curiosity.

Biting back a groan as every part of him protested the sleeping arrangements, Howard sat up and wiped one hand over his sleep-worn face. “Toss me one of those, would you?” He nodded to the banana.

“I would,” Vince said, pausing to stuff another bite into his mouth, then proceeding to speak with a mouthful of mashed banana, “but Rico only brought one.”

“Rico?” Vince twitched his head toward the treeline, where a howler monkey sat perched on one of the lower branches. He had a distinctive white patch on his head that Howard recognized. It had been Rico’s feces that decorated Howard’s hat the previous afternoon. As Howard watched him, Rico bared his teeth. “Right.”

Fresh fruit would have been nice, but Howard wouldn’t have trusted anything that came from Rico, even if Vince could persuade the monkeys to bring more food. He pawed through his pack until he found the stash of MREs he’d grabbed. They were crushed, pulverized to crumb, but still food. Howard ripped one of the packages open and picked at the bits listlessly, trying his damnedest not to think about bananas, curries, kabobs, and all the other things he’d rather be eating. 

While Howard picked at his unsatisfying breakfast, Vince wandered off toward the trees. He stood with his hip cocked, twirling a bit of hair around his fingers, chatting and laughing with a couple of small, bright-colored birds. It all sounded like chirps and whistles to Howard, but Vince threw his head back to cackle at something, gasping back a, “He did _not!_ Oh, that is rank.” His bright turquoise linen trousers, tied with a drawstring, slipped down when he raised his arms to fluff at his hair, exposing several inches of pale skin and part of a sharp hipbone.

Howard had no doubt that the papers back home would lose their bloody minds over Vince. A boy raised by wolves who could speak to the animals was a curiosity, but looking like he did on top of all that? Howard knew they’d both be celebrities the instant their ship landed back in London. He _had_ to get Vince on a boat.

Although he’d only finished half his food, he wrapped the rest back in its packaging and stood, dusting his trousers off from a full night of dirt. “Ready to get started?” He called over to Vince.

Vince stopped gossiping with the parrots to raise his brows at Howard. “As if! I haven’t even done my hair yet.”

Howard gave Vince a quick up and down glance -- not that he needed to look again -- and pronounced, “You look fine.”

“‘Fine’? Fine is nothing. I’ve got a reputation to uphold around here. Can’t have the bonobos talking shit about my mane. I mean, look at them! Dirty bastards. As if they know anything about styling.” Vince was on a tear now, and Howard had no idea what half of it meant. It was easier to surrender than to try and sort it out.

“Alright, just… hurry up whatever you need to do,” Howard said with a sigh. “We’re losing daylight already.” It was barely eight in the morning. Still, Howard wasn’t truly sure how long their hike would take. The sooner they started, the quicker Howard could get back to sleeping in a bed. 

There wasn’t much for Howard to do around the campsite. He dumped dirt on the remains of their fire and stirred the embers. Vince was perched on a rock, bent double with his face inches from the water, barely clinging to the shore with fingers and toes while he mussed his hair with his one free hand. The pose called to mind an illustrated book of myths Howard had borrowed from the library as a child -- Narcissus, captured by his own reflection. Howard chuckled to himself. 

It didn’t seem like Vince would be done fussing any time soon, so Howard took the extra minute of free time to clean out and reorganize his pack. That was frustrating enough to keep him busy for at least half an hour. In his haste to leave the ship, he hadn’t packed with his usual care, and nothing was even alphabetized, much less categorized properly. Howard spread all of his necessities out along the riverbank and settled in. 

He could already feel the temperature rising as the sun crept up along his back while he worked. It took some time to get his bag straightened up properly, but when it was all safely reassembled and the drawstring pulled tight, Howard was rewarded with a comfortable burn of satisfaction in his chest.

Vince was still traipsing around the riverbank, fussing with his hair.

Howard couldn’t believe it. Nearly an hour of the morning had passed them by and they hadn’t moved an inch. “Are you about ready?” 

“Do I look ready to you?” Vince called back. “It’s all this humidity. I can’t do a thing with the fringe in this.”

“You look the same as when you woke up.” Vince’s mouth dropped open in shock and horror. “Can we go? No one’s going to see you but me anyway.”

“You can’t know that,” Vince said, but he unfolded from his perch by the water. His hands were still mussing with his hair as he walked back toward the fire and dusted off his wolf. “You don’t even know where you’re going.”

Howard responded with a selection of disgruntled noises. There wasn’t much argument he could make there, after all, and if he started in they might be there another hour bickering, just when Vince was finally picking up his things to move. 

Once Vince had his wolf back in place and had checked his look in the water one last time, Howard shouldered his pack. He hefted it, checking the straps on the chest and pulling the shoulders tighter, and when he looked up, Vince’s fur-covered back was vanishing between the trees. 

“Wait! Don’t leave me!” Howard rushed down the bank, flailing and scrambling for purchase on the pebbled ground as the weight of his pack swung against him, momentum resisting his attempts to balance.

He found Vince waiting just beyond the tree line, blue eyes dancing as he fanned himself with a fern frond. “Thought you had a great sense of direction,” he teased. Howard snatched the leaf from his hand, then swatted him on the head with it, to no effect.

“Alright then,” Vince announced. “When you’re done mucking about, we’ll get moving.”

“ _I’m_ mucking abou--” Howard stopped himself. Another distraction. Why was this jungle boy so frustratingly distracting, anyway? Howard nodded at Vince, signaling that they could go on, but hung back, lingering in his tracks. 

He kept his eyes on Vince as the other man found a narrow animal trail and set about following it, easy as if it were a train track and not a three inch strip of dirt worn down by hundreds of tiny paws and hooves. Vince had left the hood of his cape down, so his shaggy blond hair caught light wherever it spilled dappled through the trees. He was walking heel to toe on the narrow track, ridiculous boots and all, and he had his arms stretched out in a T, like a child on a playground balance beam. 

Howard was eying him for a sign, some sort of visual clue on what it was about him that made the chatter between them so easy. There was no way around it; Howard was having longer conversations with Vince than he had with his own mum, and he’d known the other man for less than a day. Not that Howard didn’t talk to people -- he did, he always did try -- but more that he wasn’t used to them answering, holding up their own end of a joke. With Vince, if Howard didn’t bite his own tongue, he could feel the urge to banter running away with him, spiraling out of control until he’d wasted hours talking. 

And yet, there was nothing about Vince to make it obvious why they’d connected so easily. He didn’t strike Howard as an intellectual sort, wasn’t a musician or a scholar, growing up in the wild like he had. As far as Howard could tell so far, Vince’s only interests were animals, parties, and his own face.

So, why was he so easy to talk to?

He wasn’t just easy to talk to, Howard realized; he was _talking_ , currently, and Howard had been too deep in his own thoughts to notice it until Vince glanced back over one shoulder at him, and Howard saw his mouth moving.

“-- slept in the tree all afternoon,” Vince was saying. “It was genius. Always wanted to do that again, but then the next time I popped in Karimbo’s _girlfriend_ was over, and she mistook me for dinner. Luckily, I found an old kite tangled up in some of the tree branches. I fashioned it into a pair of wings and was able to glide to safety.”

“Wow,” Howard said when he stopped talking. He was genuinely regretting that he missed the first half of the story. “Does stuff like that happen often out here?”

“Oh, sure. The animals, they can never quite agree on anything, and sometimes they’ll get mad at me and Bryan as well. You never know when you might step on someone’s house or accidentally drown their child out here, and then the next thing you know you’re waking up in your treehouse with a pile of dead hummingbirds on your pillow.”

Howard couldn’t sort out which part of that ramble to ask about first. He settled on, “Drown their child?” And within seconds Vince was off, wading waist deep into a story that involved a set of twin barracudas, a freshwater dolphin, a meerkat colony, and three parrots. And the wildest thing about it was, it seemed to all be true.

Time on the hike passed quickly that way. Every tale Vince spun reminded him of another, and they leapt back and forward through time as the monkeys swung through the trees on either side of them, tracing the little game trail along the bank of the river as it slowed, then narrowed to a trickle before expanding again. 

“I was just a nipper still. I didn’t know what to do in all that. I started to tremble--”

“Oh no,” Howard interrupted mid-story. “You must never tremble in front of a newt, little man. You know they’ll--”

“--Change their sex!” Vince finished, grinning fiercely. “I do know that. Not back then, of course, but how do _you_ know?”

“Well, I’ve picked up a thing or two the past few years, about animals. I’ve been working at a zoo, you see. Head Zookeeper Moon, that’s me.” Howard hauled his pack higher by the straps, beaming with pride. 

“A zoo?” Vince perked up, turning to walk backwards so he could look at Howard as he spoke. “London’s got animals in it? Real ones?”

“Oh, sure. There are a few zoos and aquariums and such in the city,” Howard answered, eyes darting around Vince at the path ahead. Vince might be confident enough to not look where he was going, but Howard certainly wasn’t. “I work at the best one, of course.” 

Vince’s eyes were bright, and Howard suddenly saw an opening. It was the most interest Vince had shown in life outside the jungle yet. All Howard needed to do was drop the right sort of information about the city to lure Vince in, and he’d have the jungle boy eating out of his palm like a tame llama. 

“It’s more than zoos and parks, though, Vince. London’s a city of great opportunity, great knowledge. It’s a city of… of libraries, and museums. Universities. You name it, sir, and there’s a museum for it in London. Why, there’s a canal museum, a dental museum, and of course the postal museum.”

“A _postal_ museum? What’s that got, then? Fences?” 

“Fences,” Howard scoffed. “Why, it’s only got exhibits on the history of letter writing, antique stationary, and for the real risk-takers among us, they’ve got whole areas of the building dedicated to subjects like mail theft.”

“Mail theft?” Vince turned back around. “Don’t keep going on; you’ll give me nightmares.”

Howard wasn’t listening, consumed with rattling off further attractions of interest in the city: “Miniature trains, antique mail delivery vehicles, dried up ink wells…”

When Vince stopped asking questions, Howard took that as interest in hearing more. He ran out of discussion points about the postal museum quickly, but Howard was lightning fast when it came to switching topics. Without pausing for breath, he began to rattle off attractions at the museum of rural life, then the museum of childhood, then a list of his favorite antique collections at the library. 

Around the time Howard began a verbal tour of university campuses, Vince abruptly stopped in the trail. “This’ll be a good spot. We can camp here for the night.”

Howard looked around, then craned his head to the sky to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Hours had passed since they left the river bank camp, but the sun was still high overhead. The humid air was stifling beneath the burning afternoon light, and insects were all abuzz in the branches around them, but it was nowhere near dark. 

A few feet away, a side swerve on their path lead to an opening in the treeline, and Howard could glimpse the rippling green river beyond another sandy bank. Look as he might, there was nothing in particular that made the spot seem particularly nice. 

“What are you on about?” Howard asked, baffled. “It’s mid-afternoon. We’ve got hours of daylight to find a camping spot.”

“You might have, but I don’t.” Vince pulled off his cloak and strode off toward the water, fluffing his hair again as he went. “I’ve got to take a bath, and my hair takes _forever_ to dry. It’s like a mighty lion’s mane. I can’t lie down for a sleepy until it’s had two, three hours at least by the fire to warm up. Otherwise it goes all wavy and stupid, and I’ll have to wash it all over again in the morning.”

“We’re supposed to be getting me to port, not prepping you for a cover shoot for _Jungle Fashion Weekly_.”

Vince missed a step, shooting Howard a surprised look. “Am I going to be on _Jungle Fashion Weekly_? Have they talked to you?”

“That’s not a-- You know what? Nevermind.” Howard sighed. “The important thing is, we need to keep going so I can get home before the polar ice caps melt.”

“Alright, then,” Vince said blithely. Pulling back one of the sapling trees like a curtain, he hopped down onto the riverbank. “You’re welcome to carry on without me.”

Howard was left behind, holding the straps of his own pack in the thick jungle. For a second, he considered it. He was an explorer, after all. He could navigate the jungle. He’d only need to follow the river’s edge, now that he’d found it, and clearly he’d make far better time on the journey without Vince’s primping to hold him back.

But, if Howard went to the port without Vince, he’d be sailing back home with nothing to show for his journey but a broken compass and a backpack splattered with money droppings. With a frustrated sigh, Howard shoved the same tree aside to tromp through. When he let go, it snapped back and whipped him in the face.

Vince was traipsing along the rocks by the bank, making small talk with a toucan about the best bathing spot in this part of the river. When he heard Howard skidding along the bank, he paused his chat long enough to throw him a smile, and then he was back to complimenting the toucan on the shininess of his plumage. 

Howard unceremoniously dumped his bag into the sand. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the area where they’d be camping for the night -- whether he liked it or not. It looked a bit nicer than last night’s spot. The water flowed freely through this area, not stagnating to gather bugs, and the bank was more sandy than pebbled, which would be far more comfortable to rest on. By the water’s edge, there were a few craggy rocks and boulders overlooking the current, which Vince was dancing around, dashing along the jagged lines of them like he was skipping over clouds. 

Clearly, Vince intended to be a while selecting his bathing spot. Fine. Howard could make himself busy in the meantime. They’d need a fire again, for warmth and to keep the insects and animals away. Howard was more than capable of building a fire. He was a regular Prometheus of the jungle.

Leaving his bag behind, Howard slipped back through the trees in search of wood and kindling. He immediately missed his machete. Without the ability to hack limbs down himself, his only option was to scour the forest floor for fallen branches and twigs. The cool ground was thick with leaf litter, much of it damp, and Howard shuffled his toes through the decaying leaves and fungus, filling the air with the metal-tinged smell of earth.

After a few minutes of lazy digging, Howard finally tripped over a decent-sized, dry branch. He stooped to pick it up and felt the sharp prick of a mosquito making lunch of his exposed neck. Cursing, he slapped his hand over the spot, dropping the stick.

Later, he’d view that pinprick as the first volley in a war. 

No matter how Howard flailed and cursed, the bugs pursued him, flying into his eyes, his nose. The buzzing in his ears was a constant drone, and every piece of skin not covered by his clothes was a banquet. Howard stumbled between the trees, batting his hands at an invisible enemy, but determined to complete what he’d set out to do. 

He’d just picked up his fifth branch when a familiar scream echoed down from the trees. Howard froze. The howler monkeys were back. 

This time, they were throwing rotten fruit, and though Howard tried to dodge it, he smelled more than felt the wet splatter break across his back. He spun away, trying to head back toward the tree line without running, determined to keep both his dignity and his ankles.

Close by -- too close -- something growled. 

That was enough for Howard Moon. Sticks and twigs bundled beneath his arms, he broke into a jog in a straight line for the riverbank he’d left behind. In his wake, he could hear a crash, something unseen pushing through the underbrush, close on his heels. Heart pounding, Howard flung himself through the last few saplings.

He stumbled out onto the sandy bank. The growling cut off.

Howard’s eyes darted to the river in search of Vince. They shouldn’t have split up. If there were some creature lurking in the jungle, stalking Howard, then slight, naive Vince would be easy prey. 

All the hard-won firewood in Howard’s arms fell to the ground with a clatter. There, submerged to waist height in the green-tinged water, was the woman. _The same bathing woman_. Howard stumbled back, feet flailing for purchase on the sticks he’d dropped, and then came crashing down again -- firewood scattered. At least, this time, he landed on his bum and not his head. 

The whole fiasco was over in a few seconds. At the racket, the woman whipped around, and Howard’s arms jerked up into a protective curl, frantic apologies ready on his tongue.

“You okay, Howard?” Vince called out. 

Howard’s arms dropped back to his sides. Vince. _Vince_ was the bathing beauty Howard had nearly killed himself over the day before. Of course, now that he was confronted with evidence, it all made sense. Vince had such a slight figure, and his shaggy blond hair looked significantly longer when it was wet, dripping down the curve of his back like that.

Blinking rapidly, Howard turned his head away. “I’m fine,” he called back. “Just saw err-- a spider. Yeah. On my wood.” If his face was flushed, at least he could blame the reaction on the way Vince was snickering at him. Fine. Let him think Howard was terrified of a little spider. That was better than the truth. 

“The water’s not bad ‘round here. You could bathe too.” Vince’s offer was cheerful, utterly innocent and open, and that only made Howard keep his eyes more firmly fixated on the sand. 

“No, that’s fine. I’m fine.” Howard’s hand curled into a fist, sand pressing impressions into the meat of his palm. “I’ll just be… Fine. Over here.”

Vince made a barely audible noise Howard had to assume was assent. He scrambled back to his feet, keeping his eyes on the ground the whole time. His branches and kindling were everywhere, so he busied himself gathering them back up, then sorting them into piles on the beach according to length, thickness, and hard or soft wood.

Using one of the thicker pieces as a trowel, he knelt and began to scoop out a shallow fire pit, keeping his back to the river the whole time. He could hear a splash on occasion, but tried not to let his mind wander to what might be happening in the water. 

How foolish had he been, to think there was a woman out here, bathing in the middle of the jungle? How short-sighted, to not put the pieces together when he woke up and found the equally blond wolf boy leaning over him? Howard felt a lot of things, in that moment. Many of them were related to how he would, actually, quite like to turn his head and catch a second glance of the water rolling down Vince’s body. But Howard didn’t want to deal with those, not today, certainly not with Vince still naked a few meters away. No, he would pack those thoughts right back up, and he wouldn’t be unpacking them until he was back in his own bed in London, staring at the ceiling at 2 AM and unable to sleep a wink. 

In the meantime, he focused on two things: feeling a bit stupid, and making a fire. He was very experienced with the former and, fortunately, not wholly virginal to the latter.

Digging through the front pocket of his pack, Howard emerged triumphant seconds later with one of his favorite little inventions: the survival patch. He’d meant to attach the elbow patches to his khaki shirt on the journey over, but had found himself without a strong enough fabric glue and, as it turned out, a bulletproof elbow patch was rather difficult to pierce with a sewing needle. 

Still, they didn’t need to be attached to a shirt to be usable. Howard assembled a neat pile of dry leaves and grass in his fire pit, and a few strikes later, the patches had a spark. He couldn’t resist a triumphant grin even as he hurriedly fed the pile his smallest sticks and blew lightly on the tinder, egging on the flames. 

“Oh, well done, Howard.” Vince’s voice just over his shoulder was unexpected, and Howard turned to him without thinking. Luckily, Vince was _somewhat_ clothed now. His wolf cloak draped around him like a toga, held into place with a hand above his heart. “That is cozy. My hair’ll be dry in no time with the sun still out too.”

Howard felt a warmth swell in his chest, and his lips curled in a wolfish grin. It took him a moment to place the feeling as pride. Vince settled in, kneeling at the other side of the campfire, and wriggled close, fluffing his wet hair toward the heat and making contented little noises in his throat. Every small “ah” or “hm” made Howard’s lips quirk upwards again, another spark of joy, and he ducked his head to hide how much he was basking in the praise. He’d done well, provided for Vince, and it made him feel accomplished in a way he hadn’t since making first chair in jazz band at school. 

The sunset came sooner than Howard had expected it, thanks to the difference in latitude, and brought the cooler temperatures along with it. When Vince shuffled over to the rocks to slip back into his clothes, Howard kept his eyes trained on the fire, but aside from that the evening was unremarkable. Vince regaled Howard with more stories of his childhood in the jungle, his eyes flashing green as a cat in the fire light, and the only moment of true excitement came when he gestured so wildly during one tale that the fur on his cape got singed. They both rushed to pat it out quickly, but the flash of terror left them laughing, red-faced and breathless, the air around them acrid with the smell of burning dog hair. 

Midway through a wild, tilting story about Vince’s boots getting stolen by an army of leaf cutter ants, he broke off on a wide yawn, and Howard found himself echoing it. The stars were out, the moon nearly full overhead turning the ripples on the river silver. Though Howard could still hear the animals calling to one another in the trees, the insects buzzing just beyond their camp, most of it was drowned out by the white rush of the water, luring him toward sleep.

“We should call it a night. There’s another long walk ahead of us tomorrow.” Thinking about it made Howard’s calves throb. He hadn’t noticed how tired his legs were until they’d stopped for the day.

Vince frowned, wrinkling his nose. “Probably so. Ugh. I hate long road trips.” After Howard had lunged to help put out the fire on his cloak, they’d stayed next to each other on the same side of the fire, so it was easy for Vince to lean over just a bit and bump their shoulders together. “You really should have brought sweets. How am I supposed to keep my energy up?”

“Well, if you’d eat one of the proper meals I did bring--” Howard gave up mid-sentence when Vince’s face grew even more dramatically disapproving. “Fine. Starve. See if I care.”

“Oh,” Vince said, leaning in close with a mischievous grin. “You care.”

Howard froze. Vince was right there, shoulder still pressed warm to Howard’s own, with the fire throwing red highlights into his golden hair, and for a second everything inside Howard simply threw up hands, went _nope!_ , and shut down.

When he’d rebooted, he jumped to his feet. “Well, goodnight then. I’m just going to, you know.” He nodded to the other side of the fire, where his pack waited to act once more as the least comfortable pillow Howard had ever encountered. 

Vince tilted his head, fringe falling over his eyes before he batted it away. “Why not stay over here? My fur’s more than big enough to fit us both if I stretch it out. It’s loads better than lying in the dirt all night.” 

“Er. That won’t be necessary.” It was a tempting prospect, of course. Howard would vividly remember the last night’s experience of trying to sleep on the cold, pebbled ground for the rest of his life. But Howard had also never shared a bed with anyone before. Even his parents had been disapproving of his one early childhood attempt to crawl in with them after a nightmare. He couldn’t imagine having to share space with someone would do him any favors when it came to catching more than three hours of rest.

“‘Course it’s not _necessary_ ,” Vince said, “but it’s nicer, right? Not bein’ cold?” When Howard didn’t answer, he dropped his eyes and twisted a bit of hair around one finger. “To be honest, I was a bit chilly last night. Makes it harder to sleep.”

Howard couldn’t actually believe that. He’d seen Vince looking all toasty by the fire, cloak wrapped all around him, and then those ocelots curled in close. If anything, Vince would be _colder_ if Howard agreed to his plan, without the other half of the pelt to wrap over himself. As he thought of that, it dawned on him that Vince was perfectly aware of what he was offering. He was willing to give up some of his warmth for the night, for Howard’s sake.

When he thought of it that way, it was remarkably touching. Howard couldn’t think of the last time someone else had made a sacrifice for him. Maybe never. 

Howard scratched at his moustache. “Okay, little man. If you insist.”

Beaming, Vince jumped up and stepped back from the fire, shaking his cloak out away from it so he wouldn’t accidentally put out the flame or singe the fur again. Stretched out to its full size, it was somewhat wider than a single bed, but smaller than a double. Vince was right to say they’d both fit, but it was a pretty narrow thing. Had Vince been tall and broad as Howard, it would never have worked without one of them winding up in the sand. 

After patting the last edges down, Vince peeked up at Howard through his fringe. “Alright?” 

Howard nodded, not trusting his voice. There was a fluttering happening in his chest, like before a performance, and Howard did _not_ like that. This was a bed, not a trumpet solo. He shouldn’t be nervous about having a little sleep. 

Apparently oblivious to Howard’s internal conflict, Vince dropped to all fours and crawled onto the wolf pelt, curling onto his side, facing away from the fire. Now, it would look weird if Howard took too long to join him. He shuffled through the sand and lowered himself much more carefully, aligning his back with the very edge of the cloak.

Vince was right. It was warmer, and softer as well. The fur beneath him smelled pleasantly of animal, with a faint mango-like sweetness that Howard had to suspect came from Vince or whatever Vince chose to wash his clothes with. He could see the outline of the other man beside him, thrown into shadow by the bulk of Howard’s body. There was a good foot of space between them, the length of an arm from the wrist to the elbow. That was fine. He could sleep on his side, curled up like this all night, probably. 

The fire at his back verged on too warm now, close as he was to the edge of the cloak. He could feel the heat of it licking at the back of his neck, sweat threatening at his hairline. In the darkness, Vince shivered, hugging himself with spindly little arms. Howard must be blocking most of the heat from him as well as the light.

It wouldn’t do. Lying so close to the flames, Howard would fry, and Vince would freeze. Neither of them would sleep like this, and if they didn’t sleep, they’d be useless for the long hike the next day. It was practical, that was all. They were in a survival situation, and like Vince had given up his blanket, it was only fair that Howard make a sacrifice as well. 

Slowly, Howard inched away from the fire, second by second closing the gap between himself and the smaller man. When only a few inches remained, Howard raised his arm. His fingertips landed, light as a butterfly, on Vince’s shoulder, and then Howard froze, uncertain of how best to proceed.

He wasn’t given much chance to panic. At that delicate touch, Vince squirmed back, simultaneously clamping his hand onto Howard’s wrist. He pushed himself back into Howard until they were velcroed together and folded Howard’s arm over him like he was pulling a blanket into position. Howard stiffened up, instinct hitting to pull back, snap away.

But then he felt Vince sigh against him. Howard’s back was still warmed, but no longer threatened to catch fire, and now he had the heat of Vince’s body covering his front. It was no wonder the smaller man was shivering before -- all his body heat was escaping him like a radiator. Resigned, Howard pulled him in tighter, tucked his nose into the back of Vince’s head, and inhaled the sweetness of tropical flowers. He tumbled into sleep faster than he had in years.


End file.
